The present invention relates to motion control, and more particularly to an improved microcontroller based control system for apparatus such as a robotics mechanism.
In the past, non-linear control problems required complicated intermediate steps involving linearization of differential equations. The linearization resulted in controls that were not exact, so that the required trajectory was not precisely followed by the mechanical system. Also, the computation of control force using linearized equations required powerful microprocessors.
Controls for mechanical systems (such as robotic systems, structural systems, etc.), have been developed using linear feedback, non-linear feedback, or non-linear cancellation. However, none of these systems provide a closed form, real-time control force signal for any prescribed trajectory. The required feedback and the computation of linearized equations make the control force signal computationally expensive and imprecise. It is believed that the only prior art disclosing a closed form, real-time solution to the control problem is the doctoral thesis of Hee-Chang Eun, entitled On the Dynamics and Control of Constrained Mechanical and Structural Systems. However this work was limited to trajectories that are not dependent on measurement parameters, and had a restrictive limitation on the weighting of control forces. Also, Hee-Chang's work requires {1,2,3,4} inversion of matrices, which is computationally restrictive.